A biography of Mary Ellen Spear Smith, the British Empire’s first female cabinet member.
 
Mary Ellen Spear Smith (1863–1933), the first female cabinet minister in the British Empire, left a significant and complex legacy. A miner’s daughter, Smith pioneered the women’s suffrage movement in Canada and campaigned on behalf of a nascent labor movement in parliament, even as she embraced the white supremacy and bourgeois ideals of the Empire. Through the story of this intrepid politician, A Liberal-Labour Lady captures the uneven struggle for justice in turn-of-the-century Canada.